


Passion Fruit

by coagulationary



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eremin - Freeform, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, One Word Prompts, belated Eremin week stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-18
Updated: 2013-11-18
Packaged: 2018-01-01 22:23:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1049259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coagulationary/pseuds/coagulationary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a terrible famine hits their hometown, Armin and Eren choose to work in the fields to contribute to the relief effort. Little does Armin know that it will be the greatest summer of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passion Fruit

**Author's Note:**

> Well sweet Jesus riding on a giant goldfish, I haven't written a one-shot in for-freaking-ever. I missed Eremin Week last week due to my busy schedule, so I decided to do the one word prompt challenge using the word "strawberry". So here's a little belated Eremin gift of fluff that I wrote in like thirty minutes at ten 'o clock last night. Enjoy.

They were working boys, working in the strawberry fields together. In the year 845, a terrible famine struck their small hometown of Shiganshina; families perished together, and even more sat in agonizing starvation on groups of hundreds. In the summer, the yellow sun beat down on the backs of farmers hoping to reconquer their prized crops, and the sun left their backs peeling and painful and their mouths dry with heat exhaustion. In the winter, nipping storms brewed and kill all what remained of the crops in the spring and left the farmers bitter against God and the wrath that had been brought upon them. The fields layered with vivid green and bright, colorful flowers had now turned into a dead, cracked wasteland the drained the hope of the farmers with every ache of brown that had conquers the green.

Boys were sent out to the fields to gather what was left of the surviving corps, but there little was left. What remained in the Shiganshina territory were a couple of grain fields, a cabbage field, and a strawberry field.  Every working boy and girl always envied those who were permitted to work in the strawberry field, because it was always the simplest job of the three, and also the tastiest.

When Armin found out he and Eren would be working in the strawberry field together, he was ecstatic. He had been begging Eren to work with him in the fields after the library had closed down when the famine hit, but Eren was reluctant to even work at all. When he saw that there were two slots open for boys their age to work in the strawberry field, the blond practically dragged his friend across town to claim the job. Nothing could water down his spirit.

The job was not all that was made out to be, though. It was tedious and exhausting work, standing outside in the blazing summer heat for eight hours a day, only to come home with a nasty sunburn and an aching back. Armin found himself almost hating the job, but he kept his spirit high knowing that he was working beside Eren Jaeger, and that was all that mattered.

The boys spent most of their time together in that field, goofing off and sucking on sweet strawberries when the Field Master Shadis wasn't looking. At one point they and two other boys, volunteers from Trost, decided to have a friendly competition to see who could pick the most berries by the end of the day. The team of Arlert and Jaeger always won.

They had come up with a special process, Armin and Eren had, on how to pick the berries: Eren picked, and Armin put them in the baskets. It wasn't nearly as exciting as Eren's job, but Armin didn't mind. He loved watching the latter pick the strawberries, the way the sunlight reflected off his hair and made it look warm chestnuts and tinted auburn; the way his calloused hands brushed over only the most succulent berries and handed them off. It took talent to pick out the best berries, and Eren harbored the talent more than any other working boy in the fields. When the day was done, the brunet would turn to look back at Armin, his lips stained red with strawberry and little teeth stuck between his teeth, skin sun-kissed and glowing. By that point the two would be a hot mess, literally, and took turns soaking in ice baths and spreading aloe on each other to soothe the sunburn. These were the days Armin remembered and cherished the most, and he'd been stuck so hard with puppy-love that the growing famine was the least of his worries at the moment.

It was on that particular day that Armin was feeling different. The summer was nearing its end, the run beating down much more ferociously in the afternoon as it painted the sky with streaks of red and orange and pink. At the end of the summer, the boys would go back to their studies and their slots would be given to the adults searching for work. Armin would not get to work with Eren until the year passed and the next summer came, although nobody knew for sure when the famine would end and if it would permit them to continue working in the fields.

This upset him, and it was visible in his expression and in the way he worked. The summer he had spent picking strawberries with Eren was the most memorable summer of his life, and he didn’t want it to end. It seemed selfish, but he wanted the famine to go on for many years just to spend that precious time with Eren; to admire his calloused hands stained red with strawberry juice and his sun-kissed skin that tanned so easily against the sun’s glare. It was perfect, the way things were, and Armin wasn’t going to let them end quite yet.

It was several weeks before summer’s end when Armin started to feel strange. His stomach twisted in a different sort of way when Eren looked at him with those big green eyes, and the way he smiled. He couldn’t focus on anything when he was looking at Eren, and every part of him began to melt into a pile of goo every time his friend’s hands brushed against his when he handed off the strawberries. His heart raced when the day was over and Eren teased him by tipping his grandfather’s hat over his eyes, and he giggled in delight when the latter challenged him to a race on the way back to their village. When he thought of the feeling, it reminded Armin of the way a flower might bloom the way they did in the fields during the summer: slowly overtime, and then when the time came and its cycle was over it bloomed into something so beautiful and full of life. It did not, would not die in the winter, as these flowers grow round yearly and sustained the winter’s bite. When its time came, the flower would die, but not before its brothers and sister would rise like a phoenix in its ashes.

And on that day, Armin found the very strange urge to taste the strawberry juice from Eren’s lips as it dripped down his philtrum and then down his chin, leaving a red stain in its path.

Most all of the others had left that day, except for the team of Arlert and Jaeger, the team of Bodt and Kirschtein, the team of Springer and Blouse, and the team of Ymir and Reiss. Bertholdt and Reiner worked on the other side of the field, so Armin did not see them when they left, nor Ymir and Historia. Field Master Shadis had left the three teams to finish off the day themselves and as a reward were allowed to eat any strawberries that didn’t make the cut. Jean and Marco, their opponents who faced the adjacent bush, took turns picking the strawberries and resting on the side; at one point, Marco fed Jean a strawberry he had picked, and Jean ate it although much to dismay that the public eye may be watching. Marco only giggled and went back to picking.

Armin decided he wanted to try it with Eren, but as he grabbed a strawberry and tried to feed it to him, Eren turned around too quickly and it smashed against his nose. Armin sputtered out an apology in rapid fire babbling, but Eren only laughed, licked it off his face, and then smashed one against his friend’s nose.

Connie and Sasha, on the other hand, took the pile of rotting fruit they had gathered and threw it at each other, cackling wildly as strawberry splattered against the other’s face, and they fell to the ground in fits of laughter when Connie accidently hit the side of Jean’s ear and he stormed after them.

After his first failure, Armin did not want to try again, but at that point it was only the two of them who were actually focusing on their job instead of goofing off and throwing fruit at each other. A warm afternoon breeze had set in kissed their faces with humidity and heat, the sky looking as if somebody had set it on fire. It was hot, and sweat collected on the boys’ faces, but they concentrated with their work. That sweat, though, was only because of the heat against Armin’s face, but was also a mixture of Eren’s presence. Perspiration trickled down his back as it fell from the tips of his blond hair, and Eren’s did the same. He knew it wasn’t something that should make him this nervous and aroused at the same time, but God was he. His hands were sweaty and numb with excitement, and he wanted so badly to kiss Eren’s burnt face.

So he did.

With the others too occupied to pay any attention at all to the duo, as Eren handed off a strawberry to Armin he did not toss it into the basket; rather, he gripped onto the other’s hand, the piece of fruit dropping to the ground, and did not let go. His heart was beating so fast he was sure Eren could hear it, but he continued to squeeze it even after the brunet turned to look at him with a perplexed look on his face. He smiled, the remnants of strawberry apparent on his lips, but before he could do anything Armin leaned forward and pressed their lips together. The blond’s heart swelled inside of him as he tasted the smeared strawberry juice across Eren’s lips, not going so far to break the chasteness of it by shoving his tongue done his throat but he did briefly graze his tongue across the other’s bottom lip, tasting the sweet red fruit that lingered.

The kiss did not last long, as Armin pulled over before things could get too messy. His eyes fluttered open to meet a pair of bright green ones that grew at the sudden action, yet they were smiling. Eren was smiling. Armin, now embarrassed, pulled his grandfather’s hat over his eyes to shield them from Eren’s face.

 “Sorry, you had some strawberry juice on your mouth and it was bothering me,” he said, his heart thudding against his chest.

Eren did not do anything to argue or question him, though, as he lifted the hat from Armin’s eyes and captured their lips in a quick, gentle peck, leaving Armin in the utmost bewilderment as Eren began to burst into a fit of laughter. He pressed his forehead to the blond’s, continuing to laugh as if it were the funniest thing ever.

“There,” he said. “Now we’re even.”

And it was at that moment that Armin believed the famine to be a miracle. 

**Author's Note:**

> I love fluff. I love fluff a lot. To anybody who got the Junjou Romantica reference I incorporated, I love you.
> 
> I think the entire inspiration for this prompt came from the fact that we just finished reading the Grapes of Wrath and I'm still in Steinbeck mode. Oops.


End file.
